Today, I spent a trip down to Mount Vernon Sanctuary to pay respect to my ancestors on this QingMing Festival. QingMing (also known as Tomb Sweeping Day) is a big day and a yearly day of observance to most Chinese. It is a day to remember and pay respect to their late ancestors. Sweeping the tomb, offering foods and joss paper accessories are common practice on QingMing.

The sanctuary is sitting on Mount Vernon Hill. This delighting piece of land is going to be transformed into residential developments soon. My ancestors would have to move out from their long stay in no time.

It’s a place I love to visit, as the lush greenery and fresh air is awesome. The peace and calm I got from this piece of land is as good as emancipation. The lovely surrounding for all these ancestors is going to be a past soon, though their existence will always remain in our present!

Imagine them strolling along the road, sitting on the bench and chatting about their past.

The smell of the rain is a memory of when I lived on the east coast of the USA. Here in California where I have lived most of my life it only rains in the winter. In the Mountains here it snows in the winter. I do love the rain steamy and green in the summer. I miss that scent.